In the fields of computer software and networks, an application is a program or group of programs that performs specific tasks. Application monitoring is a known process of monitoring performance characteristics of an application in order that an application administrator or manager can detect and respond to problems with the application, ideally before the problems affect an end user of the application. It is known, for example, to monitor CPU utilization, throughput, memory usage and the like. Monitoring these metrics, however, is not always sufficient to effectively anticipate production problems with an application.
A component is a reusable program building block that can be combined with other components in the same or other computers in a distributed network to form an application. Components can be deployed on different servers in a network and communicate with each other for needed services.